Online Library of Liberty

Jeffersonian Republicans

The Jeffersonian Republicans, or Old Republicans as they were also known, were in the words of John Randolph advocates of the following ideas: “love of peace, hatred of offensive war, jealousy of the State governments towards the General Government and of the influence of the Executive over the coordinate branches of the Government; a dread of standing armies; a loathing of public debt, taxes, and excises; tenderness for the liberty of the citizen; jealousy, Argus-eyed jealousy, of the patronage of the President.” They were active from the late 18th century to the 1830s.

For more information see:

Norman K. Risjord, The Old Republicans: Southern Conservatism
in the Age of Jefferson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965).

Clyde N. Wilson’s Foreword to St. George Tucker, View
of the Constitution of the United States with Selected Writings , ed. Clyde N. Wilson (Indianapolis:
Liberty Fund, 1999).